Hazel Park to lay off two police officers, two firefighters

HAZEL PARK -- Two police officers and two firefighters face layoffs as part of the city's budget cuts.

City Manager Edward Klobucher said the city is eliminating a total of three positions in the police department and as many in the fire department. In addition to the layoffs a vacant position in each department has been eliminated.

"Our unions have agreed to a 5-percent wage reduction," Klobucher said. "If it hadn't been for our employees stepping forward we would have had double the amount of layoffs."

City officials had to trim over $1 million dollars from the city's budget, which now stands at $12.4 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

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"There's really not much else can cut," Klobucher said. "We've run operations here mean and lean for a decade. Luckily we're blessed with employees who want to work hard. When you are down to the bone you try to do what you can to survive."

With more than 18,000 residents, Hazel Park will have 96 full-time employees after the layoffs take effect.

Like communities throughout the state Hazel Park is hurting from cuts in state shared revenues and a decline in property taxes due to falling home prices and foreclosures.

The city eliminated a dozen clerical positions over the past decade. The remaining 20 clerical workers are now all on a part-time 32-hour work schedule.

The balance the budget city officials this year also made changes in existing retiree health care packages, refinanced the bond on the city's ice arena, eliminated a full-time position there and merged the arena's operations with the city recreation department.

Hazel Park has eliminated nearly 30 city jobs over the past eight years, Klobucher said.

"Hazel Park has been devastated by the real estate bubble bursting," he said.

Like many municipal mangers, Klobucher blames much of his community's financial problems on property tax reform laws like the Headless Amendment passed in 1978 and Proposition A in 1994.

The effect of the laws was to limit taxes on properties to the rate of inflation or 5 percent a year, whichever was less. As real estate prices boomed in Oakland County and much of the U.S. in the 1990s and early 2000s cities like Hazel Park collected much less is taxes for city operations than they would have, he said.

Hazel Park officials will soon have to consider asking residents to pass a millage to help fund city services.

"At some point it will be up to the resident to decide what kind of city services they want," Klobucher said. "There is not enough money in the system to sustain the status quo."